Programs

M02

Tokyo Midtown

Koro IHARA
book(ing)

book(ing) No.12
photo: Taihei Soejima

[Date]
May 27 (Sat), 10:00 – 28 (Sun), 18:00
[Place]
Tokyo Midtown Galleria 1st Floor, in front of Bonpoint
[Participation fee]
Free
These books have been destroyed by insects. They were once books, food for insects, uneaten leftovers, and even their homes. Ihara regards them as sculptures created by living things, and he hardens them with chemicals used in preservation and restoration while retaining the original texture of the books, then stands them on their own like sculptures. These shapes, born from the vivid breathing of small insects, can be seen scaled up to read like a map of a city viewed from the sky. Disappearance and existence, insects and humans, transcend scale to recapture the active proof of living things.

ARTISTS

Koro IHARA

Ihara was born in Osaka in 1988 and graduated from the Graduate School of Fine Arts, Tokyo University of the Arts with a degree in sculpture in 2013. Focusing on the byproducts and habits of organisms, he creates works that stand on their own as sculptures made by living creatures. In this exhibition, he will show a work in which he uses silkworms and silkworm droppings as coloring agents to dye silk, and a work in which he transforms insect-eaten books into freestanding sculptures. By daring to look at the traces of living creatures and their behaviors, the artist reexamines ecosystems and their cycles.